(first posted 4/21/2012) I have never been to Eugene, Oregon. You see, I am a corn-fed midwestern boy, born in Michigan and raised in the Hoosier state. We eat breaded tenderloins, watch basketball and buy Thomas Kinkade paintings for the living rooms of our mobile homes. What little I know about the Pacific northwest in general and Eugene, Oregon in particular comes from right here at Curbside Classic.

What I am about to tell you may or may not have happened. I am not sure what to believe, myself, and am quite confused about the whole thing. I somehow either breached the time/space continuum and landed in a little piece of Eugene for a few minutes, or Eugene did the breaching and plopped a little piece of itself down in an Indianapolis parking lot. Could this be any more confusing? The longer I think about it, I start to get a little unsettled, but here we are, so I may as well tell my tale and let all of you be the judge.

Late one Saturday morning awhile back, I was driving along, minding my own business. I am not sure where I was going, exactly. I do recall that I was driving through a large parking lot. I am sure that I was thinking about something, but don’t ask me what. This is one thing that I AM sure of – that I was actually thinking of something. I know this because have you ever tried thinking about nothing? It is incredibly hard, and I don’t do anything that hard on a Saturday morning. But I digress.

Suddenly, the radio announcer says that it will be 45 degrees and rainy in Eugene today. Huh? While I am trying to figure out why I am getting a Eugene radio station, I look up and there it is. A mossy green Dodge A-100 van. With some camper windows in it. It is not rusty. It has a wooden kayak mounted on top. This is just so wrong. Nobody in Indianapolis would drive this. I look around, and I see familiar sights, but here I am with this Dodge. This, I think, must be what it is like living in Eugene. It is almost like I am really there. Then I start to wonder. How is this Indianapolis? It is cloudy and the pavement is wet. It was dry and sunny when I started out this morning. Now its a damp day, there is nobody around, and I am staring at this van. I don’t understand this at all, but something is weirdly wrong.

I try to rationalize what I am seeing. An Indiana license plate, and a dealer sticker from an area small-town Dodge dealer that is still in business. But then I get hold of myself: In Eugene, everyone is high all the time, so maybe this is just a hallucination. We all know that the subconscious can play tricks on us, make us see things that are not really there, but are useful in helping us to make sense of things that don’t make sense.

Get yourself together, JP. You have to snap out of this. Great. Now I am talking to myself. Worse, I am talking to myself about talking to myself. This is bad. But then I look up. The Dodge is still there. I think.

Maybe it will help if I try to identify it. If I am dreaming, it may start morphing into something else. Maybe like The Brave Little Toaster. Inviting me to sit down for some waffles. This would prove that I am dreaming, and would also prove that I am back at home, because nobody in Eugene Oregon could ever possibly experience eating waffles with The Brave Little Toaster. Unless they are high. So this dream thing may not work.

I slap myself, because I can tell that my mind is running away with itself. How is that even possible? OK, what year is this thing. Jeez, they all look alike. Pick a year between 1964 and 1970. Maybe the hubcaps. I’ll take 1967 for $100, Alex. (OK, smart guy, go ahead and make fun. Let’s see you do better if YOU suddenly wake up with a piece of Eugene, Oregon hanging over you! Dammit, this is MY story, anyhow. Save your comments for later. There is a special box for you down below.)

I went to take a look inside, but was pretty freaked out about it. Doesn’t everyone in Eugene who has a van live in it? The last thing I need to see is some nut job with frizzy hair and long sideburns looking back at me through a smoky haze when I look in the window. What – there are no homicidal maniacs in Eugene? I have every right to feel anxious. That “Coexist” decal on the window could be a trap, you know. What’s with the rope on the steering wheel? Maybe each of those knots is a victim. I had better just back away quietly.

Maybe if I just start thinking about the A-100, everything will go back to normal. If it really exists. Actually, what is there to think about. It is an Econoline with electrical and carburation problems. But maybe it has a V8. No, it can’t be, because the back wheels are on the ground and not hovering in the air because of the extra front weight. Is there really anything else interesting about this van? Of course not. Chrysler during the Lynn Townsend era never did anything really interesting. Well actually, every car they sold in those days was like a 4 wheeled lottery ticket (did you win or did you lose?), so I guess that would be kind of interesting.

And would someone please tell me what is with the kayak? Just who has a wooden kayak? Isn’t this why they invented fiberglass? If you want a wooden boat, get a Chris Craft. And tow it with a Country Squire. But I keep forgetting the Eugene thing. Maybe everyone there paddles a wooden kayak while eating granola on Saturday mornings. So where is the granola dude with the paddle? And why on an A-100? Shouldn’t this be on a Subaru or a Volvo wagon? Maybe the old Dodge is just more ironic. Doesn’t everyone in Eugene do irony? I mean the kind that does not involve spray starch.

I am starting to wonder again – I know I experienced this, because I have the pictures. But are these even mine? Maybe I got onto the Curbside Cohort page in my sleep. Maybe Bryce from New Zealand took these pictures. They probably have wooden kayaks there. But they would probably be on some kind of Holden or some other car I’ve never heard of, so that can’t be it. And besides, I am still looking at the stupid van. I think. And there is nobody here who sounds like Crocodile Dundee calling me Mate. So it is not New Zealand.

Something occurs to me just now. As I looked at the A-100, I am not fifty yards from where I was standing last summer when I shot the Corvair Rampside (CC here). Maybe Eugene and I ran into each other that day too. Nothing seemed wrong then, because the sun was out. But I understand that the sun comes out a couple of times a year in Eugene, so maybe cosmic forces were just messing with me. Trying to lure me in. Maybe this whole stupid shopping center has violated some law of the universe. Oh great – one single damned wormhole in the time/space continuum and I have to step right into it. And why no Econoline so I could at least get the complete set?

Right then is when I decided that I had better try to make a break for it. We have all seen movies where the energy portal closes on the poor slob who can’t figure out that he needs to jump RIGHT NOW. So no more delays, A-100 with a wooden kayak or not.

The next thing I remember, I was driving somewhere on familiar streets on a sunny day, and feeling very strange. The radio announcer says that it will be sunny and 60 in the Indianapolis vicinity. I checked my cellphone for the time and date, and see that there are some fresh pictures there – of a moss green A-100 with a wooden kayak on top. What just happened? An alien abduction? Nah – that would just be weird.

Place a call to Murilee Martin and he’ll not only be able to tell you the year of that A100 he’ll also be able to tell you the favorite aftershave of the guy who put the tires on the drivers side as it rolled down the assembly line…

“And there is nobody here who sounds like Crocodile Dundee calling me Mate. So it is not New Zealand”. I love how Americans think Aussies and Kiwi’s sound the same. It’s kind of like how we think Canadians and American’s sound the same, but the again, you probably don’t understand what I am talking aboot, do you cuzzy-bro 🙂

It had no mention of shagging Ms. Vodka McBigbra in the the cavernous confines of the Mystery Machine, so I was pretty sure, but I had to scroll back up to the header to make sure this wasn’t written by Baruth.

JP, it’s liberating to share things like this but it’s time to get back into the program. I used to have experiences like this when I consumed adult beverages but it hasn’t happened since I quit. I think if you just eliminate the pictures from your cell phone much of the memories will disappear. I have lots of memories that I have lost in the past few years and I’m not sure whether its the change of lifestyle or the advancing years.

“This is Jim Cavanaugh, a mild mannered attorney out for a drive in Indianapolis, with no particular place to go. Little does he know he is leaving the state of Indiana. His next stop: The Twilight Zone.”

Whew, that little diatribe reminded me of a few people I knew while in college. They often talked in this manner after ingesting copious amounts of lysergic acid diethylamide. Sometimes it is fun to think about the 70’s.

JP, it’s like someone actually wrote about the crap I think to myself. It’s comforting to know I am not the only one, but disquieting as well. Perhaps you should start writing for one of those Sci-fi digests. Or you could just go on pretending you are normal. But it’s hard, really hard.

I also got nauseated by the shade of green of this van-o-turd. When small, the doctor frequently prescribed sulfa when we were sick and feverish. The sulfa pills were this color. I still associate this color with near death and the hallucinogenic dreams brought on by fever.

I get Indianapolis news and weather in the mornings because I listen to Bob and Tom on my iPhone via I Heart Radio. Amazing how similar the weather is to Northern Virginia.

The owner is clearly of the nautical persuasion. There is a monkey’s fist hanging from the rear view in addition to the decorative knot work on the steering wheel. And it takes a special person to own a wooden kayak, one with a meticulous nature and a love of old things that jives perfectly with owning an antique van. Also the van seems to be a survivor or an older restoration at most, as there are far too many dents dings and minor corrosion for a show car, yet it definitely hasn’t seen many winters. Perhaps a lake boat sailor who is away working five or six months a year and only uses it on summer outings when he’s home on vacation.

Hey JP- as Eugene’s newest resident (well, actually, Veneta) I would say that besides old Volvos and Subarus, the signature features of Eugene include an abundance of unmuffled Harley Davidson motorcycles, lots of GIANT trucks, homeless guys with signs, at every offramp, and, whenever I go to a party, folks are smoking out of a hookah (what the heck is IN the hookah? And how does that jibe with being natural, organic and vegan?)… Oh, and it RAINS or looks like rain most of the time… But, yeah, I vote for a temporary worm hole, which, luckily, you avoided falling into…As they say when they sign-off on the Portland news, “Keep it weird!”

Now in western Washington, if I’d first approached that van from the front I’d have expected it to have a collector vehicle plate or a year-of-manufacture plate, because those are the only kinds of plates that you see as singles around here. But I sure as heck wouldn’t have expected it to be wearing an Indiana plate, and I know I would wonder if I’d been transported to some midwestern location within easy A-100 driving distance of kayakable waters.

Love those old Dodge vans but I can’t stop staring at that kayak on the roof. It too is a thing of beauty and they pair up nicely. I could live on the road in a rig like this and maybe put some patina on the kayak as well.

On a camping trip a few years ago a guy showed up with a hand built traditional kayak. Sealskin over a wooden frame and very fortunately, for the seals, epoxied canvas makes a more PETA approved covering. Hand carved paddle included. He was taking orders.

Of course it’s possible that the author fell into a rift in the space-time continuum, but a more likely explanation would be a hallucination induced by fluoride in his drinking water. Have you had any repeat occurances, JP? If you’re still seeing things, give up on tap water and switch to a nice microbrew. Oh, and about those old Dodge vans? Very primitive beasts. There’s no experience quite like riding in the back of one of those, sitting on the floor, getting bounced around and up and down until you’re completely deaf and you end up needing a kidney transplant. I mean, the cargo area is more or less a slant-six echo chamber. Not a lot of nostalgia here for those things!

I was walking through the Main intersection of Nyack, NY last week when a 2nd gen VW van hightop turned through it driven by a young guy with an Arlo Guthrie head of hair. Not all that unusual in Nyack, but it was rust free, and that is.

Radio “skip” is all but unknown these days because only middle America and Seniors listen to AM radio… but about 10 years ago, a friend and I drove my Space Age Imperial Crown coupe to a weekly car show at Bear Mountain on the west side of the Hudson. On the way back, we picked up a channel from the South or Bible belt which was transmitting a camp meeting of some sort, complete with fire, brimstone and people talking in tongues. It seemed not of this century… or even the last one. This was after dark, and for a minute, we wondered if the air we were breathing inside the Imperial had stayed trapped there since it was built in 1963.

I spent many miles in one of these with the windows all ’round and three bench seats in the back in the middle 1960’s in New Hampshire .

I remember one epic trip in January to Boston , we discovered some damnfool had taken the thermostat out so we had no heat and could only drive it about 50 MPH or the engine would get too cold to keep running…..